Nakamura Sano naturally feels stressed out when his girlfriend asks him to meet her father. When he gets the courage to come visit, he discovers that her father is actually a first class DJ who doesn't want his daughter to date Sano. As a result, Sano throws himself into the DJ world and enters the DJ prelimary match!

While this is a shoujo manga, it's more acutely observed and subtle than a lot of shoujo manga out there. Sano's predictable urge to overcome the alpha male (his girlfriend's father), is as amusing as it is touching. There's also an interesting backstory behind some of the minor characters, and the art is fabulous. I'm sure you'll enjoy this.

Jan. 23rd, 2007

A collection of bittersweet tales of all the different shapes an unrequited love can come in. Why is it so difficult to confess your love? Why is it that another person can affect someone else so strongly? When a powerful man is fickle, he is allowed to be. But if a woman is unfaithful, she is called a tramp. Koi tells the realistic stories of six different women of different ages, and completely different outlooks on life.

Spine-tingling, thought-provoking and bizarre. This is the first time I've seen a female character "deconstructed" to this degree in a manga -- and I do mean deconstructed both mentally and physically.

Through round after round of extensive plastic surgery and vigorous maintenance, Ririko has become the absolute manifestation of beauty, and becomes a wildly successful model, actress and singer. However, soon her body, unable to withstand the burdens of surgery, begins to crumble, and along with it so does her mind, as she plummets towards a frightening and inevitable end.

A story about a woman's vanity, greed, hatred and despair, by the author of River's Edge.

This is one of the zaniest, most kick-ass josei stories you're likely to come across. ShoujoMagic aptly describes it as "Charlie's Angels meets Ogawa Yayoi" -- yes, there's a mysterious man who commands the unwavering loyalty of two (not three) beautiful young women, and uses them to fight dirt of all kinds, from the messy household variety to the far more deadly filth that haunts the city's crime-ridden streets.

Yuki and Emiri, the two women in question, are both as weird as they are wonderful -- they insist that their faceless boss, Akira, is in fact their long-lost boyfriend. Follow them as they try to reunite with him, despite the many hilarious (and often dangerous) mishaps that come in their way.

Jan. 21st, 2007

Published by Kodansha in 2002 and awarded the prestigious Tezuka Cultural Prize, Fumiko Takano's The Yellow Book is one of those rare works which you enjoy reading in order to feel the tender familiarity that arises between the protagonists and yourself. This collected volume was named after the longest of the four stories that it contains: a drama about an adolescent girl who falls in love with Roger Martin du Gard's saga, Les Thibault. The remaining stories capture various fragments of everyday life with tenderness and humor. Through the kaleidoscope of its feminine views, The Yellow Book touches the reader's heart by attending to what, in sum, makes up life -- the little things of our every day.

A collection of short stories by the fabulous Matsumoto Jiro. Expect the usual perversity and graphic sex scenes, although the way Matsumoto renders sex makes it far from your standard hentai porn. You'll see what I mean when you read the story -- Matsumoto-sensei is, after all, a master at employing shock tactics.

Ichiko Izumiya is a young student of English who would like to walk in the footsteps of her father, a translator of trendy American novels. She finally decides to confess to him that she is in love with Eriko, a law student. Ichiko will attempt to live out her homosexuality in peace and will be brought to wonder about the nature of her relationship: is she really homosexual or simply in love with a sensitive being who happens to be of the same sex?

Jan. 19th, 2007

Itsuki Kamiyama and his classmate Yoru Morino have a common hobby: they're both interested in murders that happen around them and are themselves drawn into them... Goth, Ooiwa Kenji's extraordinary manga debut, is based on a novel by the critically acclaimed author Otsuichi.

Based on Yoshii's hit novel series, Deep Love depicts the struggling life of Ayu, a 17-year-old high school girl who believes neither in a future nor the happiness it could bring to her. By selling her body as a teenage prostitute, she's trying to justify her existence, which is as bleak as her heart. It's not until her encounter with a kind-hearted old lady that Ayu begins to realize the true meaning of happiness...